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A few things have struck me really strong on Apple's stand and implementation on protecting users' privacy: 1. Though it's understandable that Apple earns mone

A few things have struck me really strong on Apple's stand and implementation on protecting users' privacy: 1. Though it's understandable that Apple earns money primarily by selling hardware, it's sort of amusing and alarming at the same time that a proprietary almost-closed-source software company is focusing on protecting and preserving privacy whereas partially open source platforms competing with Apple seem to be nowhere close on this aspect. Do any of the Android forks try to do as much as Apple does for privacy right out of the box (something a non-technical lay person could get)? 2. It's abundantly clear that a lot of thought has gone into the foundations of a design focused on protecting privacy and in creating silos of information in/with different SDKs and features. 3. It's a bit unclear to me as to why Health data is stored encrypted in iCloud whereas messages aren't. Is there a distinction here between iCloud sync and iCloud backups? The documentation on messages suggests turning off iCloud backup as a protective measure. 4. To me, the weakest link in the ecosystem seems to be third party apps, where Apple relies more on them adhering to the developer guidelines and on publishing a privacy policy.

wyc 9y ago
Regarding your first point, it's difficult to implement some security schemes at the operating system level alone. With full vertical control of the product, you can have nice things like secure enclaves and de-facto hardware cryptography acceleration. See here for details: https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf A lot of the features would be very difficult to implement in Android without cooperating hardware, and hardware is notoriously expensive to get right and scale up. Projects like neo900 and Purism regularly encounter delays, unexpected costs, and pricing issues. It's really tough. On a broader note, people are spending more and more time in data-hungry apps anyway, which can send almost anything they want to the network. This is sure to chip at any device-level security, pushing it towards irrelevance. I wish I had a log entry every time an app used the location service on my phone along with a database containing a history of Internet-transacted data.
- newscracker 9y ago
  Thanks for the explanation on the Android side. It still seems weird that nobody wants to take this up as a USP for their devices (referring to non-Google entities). > On a broader note, people are spending more and more time in data-hungry apps anyway, which can send almost anything they want to the network. This is sure to chip at any device-level security, pushing it towards irrelevance. I wish I had a log entry every time an app used the location service on my phone along with a database containing a history of Internet-transacted data. I've long wished for network access permission on iOS, allowing the user to decide which apps can never connect to any networks. To reduce the total attack surface, I'd want to keep many apps (especially games) running only within their sandboxes and having access to only the data they create/generate on-device and no other external resource/server. AFAIK, Android has had this even in the days of permission requests at app install time. I don't know if granular control is available on this from Android 6 onwards.
  - wyc 9y ago
    I know that Samsung is trying to push its Knox product to enterprises. I'm unsure about their technical or financial success. I don't know of anyone trying this in the consumer space either, but I'd definitely love to see more activity in this long-neglected sector. Knox: https://www.samsungknox.com/en https://www.samsungknox.com/en
tonyztan 9y ago
For point 1, I'd like to note that Copperhead provides Pixel devices that come with a privacy and security focused OS. https://copperhead.co/android/store https://copperhead.co/android/store
dpkonofa 9y ago
Where are you getting the info about iMessage not being stored in the cloud encrypted? Wasn't that a major feature point of iOS 11?
- newscracker 9y ago
  It seems like Apple could read them in iCloud. I have to admit this is a guess based on the wording on the privacy page. The privacy page still has the same text as two days ago (quoting an excerpt here): > Apple has no way to decrypt iMessage and FaceTime data when it’s in transit between devices. So unlike other companies’ messaging services, Apple doesn’t scan your communications, and we wouldn’t be able to comply with a wiretap order even if we wanted to. While we do back up iMessage and SMS messages for your convenience using iCloud Backup, you can turn it off whenever you want. Compare that with what it says under the Health section of the same page (quoted excerpt): > And any Health data backed up to iCloud is encrypted both in transit and on our servers.

wyc 9y ago

Regarding your first point, it's difficult to implement some security schemes at the operating system level alone. With full vertical control of the product, you can have nice things like secure enclaves and de-facto hardware cryptography acceleration. See here for details: https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf A lot of the features would be very difficult to implement in Android without cooperating hardware, and hardware is notoriously expensive to get right and scale up. Projects like neo900 and Purism regularly encounter delays, unexpected costs, and pricing issues. It's really tough. On a broader note, people are spending more and more time in data-hungry apps anyway, which can send almost anything they want to the network. This is sure to chip at any device-level security, pushing it towards irrelevance. I wish I had a log entry every time an app used the location service on my phone along with a database containing a history of Internet-transacted data.

newscracker 9y ago
Thanks for the explanation on the Android side. It still seems weird that nobody wants to take this up as a USP for their devices (referring to non-Google entities). > On a broader note, people are spending more and more time in data-hungry apps anyway, which can send almost anything they want to the network. This is sure to chip at any device-level security, pushing it towards irrelevance. I wish I had a log entry every time an app used the location service on my phone along with a database containing a history of Internet-transacted data. I've long wished for network access permission on iOS, allowing the user to decide which apps can never connect to any networks. To reduce the total attack surface, I'd want to keep many apps (especially games) running only within their sandboxes and having access to only the data they create/generate on-device and no other external resource/server. AFAIK, Android has had this even in the days of permission requests at app install time. I don't know if granular control is available on this from Android 6 onwards.
- wyc 9y ago
  I know that Samsung is trying to push its Knox product to enterprises. I'm unsure about their technical or financial success. I don't know of anyone trying this in the consumer space either, but I'd definitely love to see more activity in this long-neglected sector. Knox: https://www.samsungknox.com/en https://www.samsungknox.com/en

tonyztan 9y ago

For point 1, I'd like to note that Copperhead provides Pixel devices that come with a privacy and security focused OS. https://copperhead.co/android/store https://copperhead.co/android/store

dpkonofa 9y ago

Where are you getting the info about iMessage not being stored in the cloud encrypted? Wasn't that a major feature point of iOS 11?

newscracker 9y ago
It seems like Apple could read them in iCloud. I have to admit this is a guess based on the wording on the privacy page. The privacy page still has the same text as two days ago (quoting an excerpt here): > Apple has no way to decrypt iMessage and FaceTime data when it’s in transit between devices. So unlike other companies’ messaging services, Apple doesn’t scan your communications, and we wouldn’t be able to comply with a wiretap order even if we wanted to. While we do back up iMessage and SMS messages for your convenience using iCloud Backup, you can turn it off whenever you want. Compare that with what it says under the Health section of the same page (quoted excerpt): > And any Health data backed up to iCloud is encrypted both in transit and on our servers.